Saturday, April 25, 2009

Our day actually started in Apgujeong (love this district).Bich, me, and the Boys Over Flowers cast in the subway.Another neat way to advertise - these T-shirts were hung all over this street.Drank chocolate lattes @ De Chocolate on Rodeo. It's a 2-floor, cozy, minimalist chic cafe where a lot of stylish people and celebrities happen to hang out. I bought a neat skirt from this little boutique on Rodeo. In the other stores, I actually saw a lot of the exact same things I bought at Dongdaemun except in Apgujeong, they raised the prices by approximately 15,000-20,000won because they can. Those who regularly shop in Apgujeong don't usually step foot in Dongdaemun's wholesale malls.Then we taxi-ed to the Kangnam district to buy some CDs at Kyobo bookstore. It was my first time in Kangnam. It's considered one of the most affluent districts in Seoul. Kangnam is known for their bar+club+restaurant+cafe+noraebang district. This little area we happened to be drawn to because of the bright fluorescent lights that really made it look like it was still daylight at 2AM wasn't more than 4 blocks by 3 blocks and the roads looked like alleys. Everything on the main streets consisted of banks, business buildings, or chain cosmetics and clothing stores.We also received this brochure 5 or 6 times by aggressive promoters while walking around the bar district. What was funny about it was that was advertising a bar called the Boys Over Flowers Bar (kkotboda namja bar)! I would never have thought of a bar to have spawned from the popularity of that drama! From the pictures, it looked like there were 5 decent-looking men working there who call themselves F4 (the 4 good looking and suave guys from the drama).At 9PM we finally found a place to eat in the district after being followed by people trying to get us to try their restaurant. The front of the restaurant advertised a chicken, rice, and cheese dish you cook in a hot, black skillet for 5,000won/person. We both wore red aprons to keep our clothes clean and at the door, there was a bottle of febreeze you could help yourself to to spray your clothes before you left! hahaA cute name for a cafe. It caught my eye because everything surrounding it (people, establishments) were loud and fast-paced.After dinner we ended up checking it out, hoping for a quiet place to chat. Once you walk down that hallway, you're brought to this dark area mainly lit by oil candles. The servers were dressed so casually, I thought they were customers helping themselves -- they were quite pleasant either way.There were some great personalized details that made this cafe charming like help-yourself chalk to draw on the cement walls, random figurines and CDs layed out everywhere, wine bottles, and signs related to "slowness". They played mainly alternative rock and soft rock. Upstairs was like a loft. They had mini wooden boxes on the floor and a bunch of oil candles, which gave it a very intimate vibe.The bathroom was also only lit by candles. Nice message~I was quite taken by this cafe ;)Lovely, relaxing day spent out despite the rain =)

5 comments:

KANGNAM! T.Tthat's where i lived for a month last summer. :[ i want to go to so many of these places that you blog about! lolsince clothes there are really cheap... would clothes in like apgujeong be like prices over here? like in America?

haha yea clothes in Apgujeong are around $50-70 which is probably how much you could get the same thing in the States whereas the same clothes in Dongdaemun are around $30-45 -- but those are for the nicer clothes. There are quite a few items in DDM for $5-20 too! I actually don't really consider the clothes here to be TOOO cheap, but for the style you can't get at home and for the quality, it's worth it I think.Hey I think I heard that SHINee is performing at Yonsei at the end of May -- I may go check it out =)

your blog is awesome for what to do and nots in korea! cant wait to reach there next week! and i am so envious you get to see SHINee. unfortunately when i reach, the same day they fly to Hollywood Bowl. and i leave just a few days before they release their 2nd minialbum!